Outside the immigrant detention center in Tacoma on Wednesday, Humphrey Oyoo was trying to find his pregnant wife. Cece Mokua, 29, had been detained the day before, while going to what was supposed to be an interview for her asylum application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – an agency that under past administrations was not involved with immigration enforcement and instead focused on adjudicating applications for legal status. Instead, Mokua found herself dealing with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, who separated her from Oyoo and their 1-year-old, kept her for hours in a holding cell and took her to the Northwest ICE Processing Center. But when Oyoo tried to leave a message for his wife Wednesday at the front desk of the Tacoma detention center, he was told she had been released. But had she really? Or was she being transferred to another ICE facility out of state? That has been happening to hundreds of people recently, and they too had usually been listed in the detention center’s system as “released.” The front-desk officer couldn’t tell him. About an hour later, Mokua called her husband. She truly was being released, but would remain in just-initiated deportation proceedings. He could pick her up in Tukwila. So ended a confusing two-day ordeal for the couple, highlighting the unpredictability of current immigration enforcement tactics and the difficulty of getting information about people who have been detained. For a pregnant woman such as Mokua, the experience can be especially difficult. Mokua is five months pregnant and said she experienced contractions and a migraine while detained. Supporters of the couple, including members of the activist group Defend Migrants Alliance who were at the detention center Wednesday with Oyoo, believe Mokua walked into a trap: a supposed asylum interview that was a pretext for her arrest. “We have seen from time to time people called in for appointments with USCIS that really ended up being appointments for ICE to either arrest or initiate removal proceedings,” Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said by email. While not the norm, such ICE arrests across the country make it impossible to advise people on whether they might be detained in any particular situation, said Andrea Sáenz, a former member of the federal government’s Board of Immigration Appeals now working at Co-Counsel NYC, a New York-based legal services group. The majority of people arrested by ICE locally and nationally in recent months have no criminal record. But someone who does, despite how old the charges or their level of severity, faces an increased risk of enforcement. Mokua on New Year’s Day 2024 was charged with driving while under the influence, later amended to reckless driving, a gross misdemeanor. She said she was driving through fog on the wrong side of the road and crashed into the median when an oncoming car approached. She served no jail time, according to court records. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not provide answers this week to questions about Mokua’s arrest and detention. A previous U.S. Department of Homeland Security statement commented generally on the detention of people with pending asylum applications, which was fairly unusual under past administrations. “To be clear, a pending application does NOT confer legal status in the United States. Any application for asylum does not preclude immigration enforcement,” the statement said. ICE last month detained Kenyan physician and asylum applicant Robert Sidhe as he was returning to his Lynnwood home from the gym. In Seattle, he has worked as a patient care technician, assisting nurses, at UW Medicine. A federal judge ordered him released. After Mokua’s arrest, SEIU 775 expressed concern about ICE enforcement against healthcare workers. Mokua does not work in healthcare, but her husband is a home healthcare aide and SEIU union member in Spokane, where the couple lives. He also runs an adult family home for seniors and others who can’t live on their own. “We are already facing a shortage of caregivers as the population ages, and attacking immigrants will only deepen that shortage and make it harder for residents to get the care they need,” the union said in a statement. According to Mokua, she came to the U.S. legally as a 15-year-old to live with an aunt in New Jersey and to escape female genital mutilation, a standard practice of her tribe. She finished high school in New Jersey and then college, majoring in biology, she said. The aunt was supposed to make sure her young charge’s visa was renewed but would get irritated when Mokua asked about it. “So I stopped asking her,” Mokua said. Her visa expired. From Kenya, her dad advised Mokua to apply for an internship anyway. Her employer would likely help her fix her status, her dad thought. But Mokua said she was distracted by college life and some difficult experiences that affected her mental health. She had a brief, unhappy marriage after college to a U.S. citizen who promised to help her achieve legal status but never did, Mokua said. She moved to Spokane, where she has relatives, and several years ago met Oyoo on a dating app. They knew a lot of the same people. Oyoo, who said he is a green-card holder, is also from Kenya and lived for a time in New Jersey. They had a baby, Josiah, and a month ago married. Meanwhile, Mokua said, she applied for asylum on the basis of her tribe’s female genital mutilation practices. The family showed up to the scheduled USCIS interview with supporters who had invited the press to come. ICE had previously arrested at least a handful of Kenyans, they said, creating foreboding. Oyoo and a recent law school grad accompanying them trailed behind Mokua as they went through the security line to get into the Department of Homeland Security’s regional headquarters in Tukwila. Mokua was focused on getting to the 7:30 a.m. appointment on time. Oyoo had the baby and stroller, slowing him down. He handed the baby to the law school grad as he went through security and by the time he turned around, his wife was nowhere to be seen. “Where did she go?” he thought. He and the law school grad went to a second-floor waiting room. “By the time we were getting to the fifth hour, I knew there’s something wrong,” Oyoo recalled. He eventually got to an ICE officer to ask what was happening and was given a non-answer. He would have to wait for her call. Mokua had been immediately approached by an officer, she said later. He led her up stairs to a waiting area and, in a few minutes, she was called into another room. This is her interview, she thought. But when the door opened, she saw two officers in ICE uniforms who told her she was under arrest. She protested that she was there for an asylum interview and that her husband, child and lawyer were nearby. (The law school graduate was there for moral support, not to represent her.) But they pulled her arms behind her back, handcuffed her and took her through what she described as a back door. She did not tell them she was pregnant. “I was scared and nervous,” she said. She was taken to see an ICE officer, who began asking her when she had come to the U.S and why she fell out of status. Then, Mokua said, she was placed in a cold, bare holding cell with concrete benches. She was offered noodle soup in a cup but turned it down. She had lost her appetite. She stayed there until about 8 p.m., she said, as ICE arrested roughly 15 more people. They were men and were put in a separate holding cell. Eventually, ICE officers loaded them all onto a bus – chained and cuffed around their hands, waist and ankles – and took them to the detention center. Mokua said the holding cell she went into there was even worse: “filthy, smaller.” Another long wait began while ICE processed what she said were some 30 people just arrested. She said the only drinking water was from a sink above the toilet and she worried that was unsanitary. So she didn’t drink at all. The migraine and contractions started. At that point, she made detention center officials aware of her condition and saw a detention center nurse. He didn’t give her any medicine, she said, but wrote a note saying she should have a bottom bunk when she got to her dormlike unit, making it easier to maneuver. She reached the unit about 8 a.m., she said. The beds came with thin mattresses and no pillows, she said. The food served was cold and looked unappetizing. Again, she passed on eating. But there were books and games available as well as companionship with people from all over world. She had a video call with her husband and Josiah. The 1-year-old cried. By 12:45 p.m., she was told, without explanation, she was being released. She wondered if it was because officials realized she was pregnant. The Trump administration has knowingly detained pregnant immigrants, disregarding a Biden-era policy. But the current administration has faced criticism for doing so and, after 18 miscarriages by detained pregnant women, has stopped tracking that figure, The Guardian reported this month. Officers took Mokua back to the Homeland Security regional headquarters and then to a nearby building that houses a program ICE uses to monitor people in deportation proceedings who are not detained. She came out with a watch monitor and a small bag of belongings, looking dazed. She wore a long, yellow sweater coat over her detention center uniform: a navy sweatshirt and sweatpants. Oyoo drove up with Josiah and she embraced her husband, then swooped Josiah into her arms. Oyoo suggested they go to an Indian restaurant to get his wife’s favorite food. She hadn’t eaten in two days at this point. The air was celebratory but Mokua’s mind was still on what lay ahead: a Monday check-in with ICE in Spokane. She didn’t think she could handle another surprise detention.